youtube music

Google is in the midst of transforming its music and video subscription services under the YouTube name, and that includes some small pricing changes. Students can get a deal, though. Google is reportedly announcing student-only pricing for YouTube Music Premium and YouTube Premium today. Both options shave several bucks off the monthly price, and it's even cheaper if you act fast.

Looking to migrate your Google Play Music subscription to YouTube Music? You may want to hold off if you have Kidz Bop listeners (read: children) linked to your account. Following your transition, those accounts will no longer be functional.

YouTube's paid offerings are expanding to more and more countries. After an initial launch in the US in June, they have now reached over 25 nations worldwide and don't seem to be slowing down.

The latest additions are seven new countries spread across several continents:

Chile

Colombia

Japan

Peru

Portugal

Switzerland

Ukraine

To get started, go to youtube.com/premium and sign up. YouTube Music offers music streaming without the videos, and it's free with ads and no offline downloads. If you want ad-free access and offline streaming, you can get Music Premium. The more all-encompassing YouTube Premium gives you the same benefits as Music Premium plus an ad-free experience across all of YouTube's videos and access to exclusive content.

Oh, Google. After so, so many attempts to get a music service right, the company appears to have settled on YouTube Music. Google started the shifting focus to YouTube Music earlier this year, making the app something you might actually want to download. The YouTube Music app has increased its footprint since the announcement, and it's just crossed the 100 million marker.

Every week, I examine somewhere in the neighborhood of a hundred app updates while looking for changes. The most interesting things turn into APK Teardowns or Download posts. Many of the remaining updates are unremarkable, amounting to a few bug fixes, routine updates to libraries, or even just pixel-level adjustments to layouts and images. However, there are usually a few updates that land somewhere in between. I don't want to spam readers with dozens of short posts, but I hate to ignore things that people might want to know about, so I'm going to wrap up the leftovers for a little weekend reading and call it Update Notes.

It's been a volatile time for Google's streaming services. YouTube Red was rebranded as YouTube Premium in May and YouTube Music Premium was launched, which lacked some features found on Google Play Music. The product team held an AMA to calm some of the anger behind it all. Amid the confusion, it’s possible users might have subscribed to memberships with the same services. To help customers sort out their subscription mess and save some money, Google posted a YouTube Help document detailing the various feature sets and steps to take for remedying duplicate music accounts.

YouTube Premium and Music Premium are continuing their slow global expansion — though to be honest, they seem to be doing it at a rate faster than Google Play Music ever did. The latest addition is one of the world's largest countries in both surface and population, Brazil.

In February, we posted a teardown that revealed audio quality controls for YouTube Music Premium much like those in Google Play Music. The settings remained inaccessible, however, until an app update on Friday, Sept. 21st. YouTube Music Premium users can now set the quality for audio downloads for both wifi and mobile data. These controls mirror the options available in Play Music, which have been available for nearly two years.

Every week, I examine somewhere in the neighborhood of a hundred app updates while looking for changes. The most interesting things turn into APK Teardowns or Download posts. Many of the remaining updates are unremarkable, amounting to a few bug fixes, routine updates to libraries, or even just pixel-level adjustments to layouts and images. However, there are usually a few updates that land somewhere in between. I don't want to spam readers with dozens of short posts, but I hate to ignore things that people might want to know about, so I'm going to wrap up the leftovers for a little weekend reading and call it Update Notes.

Every week, I examine somewhere in the neighborhood of a hundred app updates while looking for changes. The most interesting things turn into APK Teardowns or Download posts. Many of the remaining updates are unremarkable, amounting to a few bug fixes, routine updates to libraries, or even just pixel-level adjustments to layouts and images. However, there are usually a few updates that land somewhere in between. I don't want to spam readers with dozens of short posts, but I hate to ignore things that people might want to know about, so I'm going to wrap up the leftovers for a little weekend reading and call it Update Notes.